


all clever men are birds of prey

by pentipus



Series: Character Studies [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Kinda, Sadness, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5648947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentipus/pseuds/pentipus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Poe would trawl through the wreckages of enemy ships after battles, collecting pieces of the men he had killed, little bones and scraps of cloth and splinters of metal. He would bind them together with twine and make dark tufts of detritus that fit into the palm of his hand, which he carried from place to place; a little reminder of all that he had done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all clever men are birds of prey

Poe Dameron was a killer, and he cast a wide shadow; wings buoyed not by eddying thermals but by roaring ion thrusters. He remembered every life he had taken, with blaster, with canon, with his own calloused hands. Sometimes Poe would trawl through the wreckages of enemy ships after battles, collecting pieces of the men he had killed, little bones and scraps of cloth and splinters of metal. He would bind them together with twine and make dark tufts of detritus that fit into the palm of his hand, which he carried from place to place; a little reminder of all that he had done.

When Poe crashed into the desert he took nothing, instead choosing to leave something behind in case Finn was still alive. He plucked a black button from the collar of his shirt and pressed it between his lips, letting saliva well up in his dry mouth.

Poe wondered if there were pieces of Finn somewhere among the dunes, some gory little souvenir he might take for himself. But Poe did not seek him, instead he stared towards the sun, turned a full three-hundred and sixty degrees towards the long horizon and then back, before setting off alone.

He’d walked longer walks, and harder ones at that. As he walked he thought of Kylo Ren, and of the dark space Ren had carved within him. He suspected that the memory of the pain would stay with him forever, a drop in the ocean of his sorrow.

He imagined picking away at the skin of his palm until he reached the metacarpals under his thin muscles, twisting the little bones from within himself and rolling them up with a lock of his own hair and the dark wet button he moved around his mouth; a keepsake to remember his failure by.

He bit down hard on the button, making sure that it caught on the tooth that was going bad at the back of his mouth. He relished the pain, and ground his teeth into the plastic until his jaw was numb, the acrid taste of blood over his tongue. He imagined a spray of viscera across the dunes like the markings on a blast pad, showing him the way. He saw the ashen faces of dead men and women and wondered how many lives would be lost because of his weakness, his unintentional massacre.

Yes, Poe Dameron was a killer, and his victims would span the stars.

 


End file.
